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  3. How to Convert a UNIX Timestamp to a Date in JavaScript or Node.js

How to Convert a UNIX Timestamp to a Date in JavaScript or Node.js

The UNIX time describes a point in time using an integer value. This integer is the number of seconds since the UNIX epoch. The UNIX epoch is 01 January 1970 at 00:00:00 UTC.

This tutorial shows you how to convert a UNIX timestamp to a JavaScript date instance.

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Convert UNIX Time to a Date in JavaScript

The UNIX time uses seconds to represent a point in time. JavaScript dates work with milliseconds. You can still translate a UNIX timestamp to a JavaScript by translating the given value from seconds to milliseconds:

/**
 * Returns a date instance from the given `unixTimestamp`.
 *
 * @param {Number} unixTimestamp  Number of seconds since Unix epoch
 *
 * @returns {Date}
 */
function toDate (unixTimestamp) {  
  return new Date(unixTimestamp * 1000)
}

Enjoy working with UNIX times and JavaScript dates!

Marcus Pöhls

Marcus is a fullstack JS developer. He’s passionate about the hapi framework for Node.js and loves to build web apps and APIs. Creator of Futureflix and the “learn hapi” learning path.

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